Richard Hine was born in London and now lives in New York, where I recently met up with him. He has worked in advertising and publishing. His first novel,
Russell Wiley is Out to Lunch, was published in October 2010. It has had
enthusiastic endorsements from industry insiders and is even
taught in the 'Business and the Future of Journalism' class at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
Q) Richard, thanks for agreeing to answer some questions about your work. When did you move to the United States, and why?I moved to New York in 1987 at the age of 24 and have lived here ever since. I’m now 48, so I feel about half-British, half-American, which balances well with my life partner, Amanda Filipacchi, who’s half-French, half-American by birth.
I don’t think I would have ever contemplated living in America if I hadn’t worked as a gofer at the London offices of ABC News in the early 1980s. One of the people I met there was Bill Thompson, an American studying in London and interning at ABC. We became close friends. Through Bill I met a lot more American students in London, many of who were foolish enough to invite me to visit. I spent two summers in the mid-80s doing just that, traveling from NY to Ohio to Missouri to Texas to Pennsylvania and a few other places all by Greyhound Bus. It was a lot of fun. Except for the parts on a bus.
Back in 1987, I had no intention of moving to the US permanently. I married an American and we planned on staying in NY two years before heading back to London. But somehow our plans changed and so did my attitude about living in the States. At first I found New York overwhelming, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.
Q) You have worked as a ghostwriter. Can you tell us whose books you have ghosted – and even if not, can you talk a bit about the process? Did you find it satisfying, creatively?Throughout my career, I’ve done a great deal of writing—from advertising copy to sales letters to speeches—in the voice of others. So I do think I’ve developed a knack for organizing and expressing the thoughts of others (even if I still have trouble doing it for myself).
I ghostwrote one book, called SURVIVE TO THRIVE, for Philip H. Geier, Jr., the former CEO of Interpublic Group, one of the big four advertising holding companies. Phil was one of the industry’s original “Mad Men,” having started at the McCann-Erickson agency in New York in the 1960s. He rose to be CEO in 1980 and spent the next 20 years competing with the likes of the Saatchis, Martin Sorrell’s WPP and Omnicom.
Writing the book was challenging and fun—and gave me a chance to hear the inside stories of some of the great campaigns I remembered from childhood, as well as the major ad-business battles that defined the industry in the 1990s. Phil and I forged a close and productive working relationship. And I enjoyed the discipline and research—and deadlines—that go into producing a non-fiction book.
Q) Were you prompted to write Russell Wiley Is Out To Lunch because of your experiences in the media industry or had you always planned to sit down and write a novel one day?I always wanted to be a novelist. Although if Twitter had existed when I was a kid, I might have aspired to produce the Great American Tweet instead. I did write a lot of short stories and flash fiction over the years, some of which even got published. But the challenge of writing a novel always daunted me. Eventually, though, I realized I knew more about working on the business side of an “old media” company than most novelists, and convinced myself that it would be worth creating a story about the challenges of print media in the digital age. So I allowed myself to give it a go. Also, getting older helped. I finally got to the point where I could no longer stand being one of those people who spend their life talking about writing a novel and never doing it. Even if I failed completely, I was ready to move to the level of having an unpublished novel I could keep in a drawer. Fortunately, I had the gumption to take it back out of the drawer and completely rewrite it before attempting to get it published.
Q) Amazon and Zooppa.com hosted the first crowdsourced book launch competition for your book. How did that come about?One of my former Time Inc. colleagues, Wil Merritt, is now the CEO of Zooppa. It’s a company that runs creative contests to produce advertising for major brands like Google, Kit-Kat, Microsoft, Nike, and Sony. We had lunch one day and he described what a crowdsourced contest was—how it got talented people around the world to produce videos, print ads and online banners based on a specific creative brief. I told him I wanted one for my book. Amazon liked the idea. And away we went. The contest generated a total of 150 creative entries, including 30 different video book trailers. Our panel of judges had to choose between some superbly acted and directed mini-movies and some fantastic animated spots. The winner was a funny music video.
Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch may not be as famous as Kit-Kat, Microsoft, Nike or Sony. But you can definitely find it on Google.
Q) Your website looks amazing. Where else can we find you online?Thanks. The site was designed by Jefferson Rabb, one of the top designers of author websites in New York. You can also find me on Twitter
@richardhine. If you want news about the newspaper business and annoying promotional tweets about my novel, I also have an account called
@newspapernovel.
I’m also on Goodreads, where anyone who is a friend of
Helen Smith is welcome to be a friend of mine. My Goodreads author page is:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3927407.Richard_HineI’m on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/richardhine.FB and also have a “fan” page for my novel on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/RussellWileyIsOutToLunchFinally, if you only want videos, I also have a YouTube page featuring all 30 videos from the Zooppa contest and more:
http://www.youtube.com/richardhineauthorQ) What are you working on now – are you writing another book?I am definitely working on a new novel. Just not as much as I should be.
Thank you! I really enjoyed Russell Wiley is Out to Lunch. Good luck with the next book, Richard. [author photo by Amanda Filipacchi]
There's a fantastic review for ALISON WONDERLAND over at Zee Monodee's blog today:
